Match Game

Simple little game, just match the NFL star and crime to the sentence received:

A) Leonard Little - While driving in 1998 with a BAC of 0.19(more than double the legal limit), Little ran a stop light, hitting another vehicle and killing Susan Gutweiler
B) Ray Lewis - Involved in a fight at a 2000 Super Bowl party in which 2 people were stabbed to death. Lewis was seen hitting at least one of the victims and telling witnesses to keep quiet. He later dumped a bag containing his bloody suit in a dumpster. When questioned by police, Lewis lied and said he didn't know the other two suspects.
C) Pacman Jones - The worst of many incidents was a 2007 fight at a Las Vegas strip club that ended with one man paralyzed from a gunshot wound
D) Michael Vick - bankrolled a dog-fighting ring and admitted to executing several dogs and gambling on dogfights.

1) Pleaded no contest to disorderly conduct. Received 1 year probation, community service, and anger management classes.
2) Received 60 days in jail and community service for involuntary manslaughter.
3) Plead guilty. Received 23 months in jail and 3 years probation.
4) Plead guilty to obstruction of justice. Received 1 year probation.

Answer key:
A-2: Little was allowed to serve his sentence in the offseason in a work house. 6 years later after the crime had been wiped from his record, he received another DWI for which he received 2 more years probation.
B-4: Murder and assault charges against Lewis were dropped in exchange for his guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice.
C-1: Jones also received a one-year suspension from the NFL.
D-3: Vick was sentenced on December 10, 2007. The sentence could have been as high as 5 years, but was still higher than the federal sentencing guidelines of 1-18 months.

Just to recap, we've got 4 athletes, 3 people dead, one person paralyzed for life, and an unspecified number of dogs executed(Vick admitted to helping kill as many as eight). Only two received any jail time at all, and the one who killed dogs got nearly 12 times the sentence of the one who killed a 47 year old wife and mother while he was drunk behind the wheel. How many of you had heard of the Leonard Little incident before today? How many even remember the Ray Lewis incident that was swept under the table. When you think of Pacman Jones do you think about Tommy Urbanski, the paralyzed club employee, or do you think about "Makin' it rain!" But I guarantee just about everybody in America, whether a sports fan or not, knows about the Michael Vick case.

Don't get me wrong, I am horrified by Vick's crimes and don't think his sentence was too stiff in the least. Honestly, I can think of many more people I'd like to see dead than dogs. As a dog-lover and a former owner of several dogs I am outraged by what he did and by the fact that dog-fighting still occurs on such a large scale in this country. But you know what outrages me even more? The American public's willingness to ignore anything that is happening in this country until the TV cameras and protesters show up in enough force to make it onto the national news. PETA shows up and launches a protest and Vick is public enemy #1. Meanwhile Ray Lewis stands by and watches as two of his limo passengers stab and kill two other men and then lies about it and a year later he is fucking Super Bowl MVP! Can you imagine what the public outcry would've been if Vick had gotten even the next harshest penalty of 60 days in jail? They're still protesting the fact that he "only" got 23 months in jail. It doesn't quite seem right to me, but then I guess there isn't a multi-million dollar charity dedicated to the ethical treatment of people(PETA received nearly $30 million in donations last year).